"As you know, I last attended the Gridiron dinner two years ago. Back then, I addressed a number of topics - a dysfunctional Congress, a looming budget crisis, complaints that I don't spend enough time with the press. It's funny, it seems like it was just yesterday," Obama said.

This year, the president said the jokes were a little harder to come by because of forced budget cuts and also talked of the notoriously long dinner.

"My joke writers have been placed on furlough," Obama said. "Of course there is one thing in Washington that didn't get cut: The length of this dinner. Yet more proof that the sequester makes no sense."